Correct shadows with shadow only material (shadow matte)

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1

Hi,

I am wanting to put a 3d animated character into some real footage. In 3ds max, a shadow matte is used, where the object with the material is not seen, but the background is. This is equivilant to the shadow only texture in blender.

The problem is that in blender, I can only set it up in these ways:

  • the shadow only object casts shadows on everything;
  • the shadow only object casts no shadows; or
  • the shadow only object has no shadows on it

In 3ds, shadow matte objects casted and received shadows from everything except each other. This is what I want, as the video footage will already have the shadows of other objects already in the scene.

How can I do this in blender?

thanks,
Michael

ps. Sorry if I didnt explain too well

2

hey,

I dont seem to be getting any responses, maybe this is not possible in blender. If this is the case, is this a feature that may need to be added?

thanks,
Michael

3

If I would need some kind of selective shadows, I would use different layers and the “layer only” feature of the lamps.

But I havn’t done any composition work, so this may not be variable enough.

4

soylent_gr,

Thanks, I have had that suggested before, however, it wouldn’t really work. The reason is that the light would then cause the shadow only objects to not cast shadows on other objects that I want them to.

thanks,
Michael